Celtics in Sight

With their sixth straight win, the Knicks are within a half game of Boston for second in the East.

Good morning! Finally, a relaxing win.

Knicks 145, Wizards 113

47-25 (W6); 26-9 at home

Shout out to the Wizards, man.

They didn’t just flip the bird at the NBA by tanking their season to retain a top-eight protected pick. No, no, no. They went out and traded for two max players with 14 All-Star selections between them, and proceeded to play them for a total of 104 minutes. That’s two middle fingers and a big toe right there.

Now losers of a franchise-record tying 16 consecutive games, Washington has all but secured their pick in the upcoming draft. They have pushed the boundaries of basketball incompetence in order to do so, evinced by last night, when a barely serious Knicks team put up their second highest point total and sixth largest margin of victory this season.

I could sit here and try to draw real conclusions from this, a glorified exhibition match, but that would be insulting to both of us. I’m frankly not sure how unserious New York would have had to be for this to have been competitive. Then again, given how they’ve looked at times over this now six-game winning streak, perhaps we shouldn’t take anything for granted.

Wins are wins though, and because the Knicks keep piling them up, a Celtics home loss to the Anthony Edwards-less Wolves last night means that Boston is now just a half game up on New York in the standings. The Knicks now control their own destiny for the second seed, and the Celtics have the harder of the two schedules remaining.

That’s one big takeaway from the night. The other, at least if you’re a data nut like I am, is that New York slid back into the fifth spot in the league-wide defensive rating rankings. Combined with their third ranked offense, that means they are once again top-five in both categories, joining San Antonio and Boston among teams that can make such a claim.

(Interestingly enough, neither of the top two teams by net rating are top-five in both offense and defense. The Thunder and Pistons rank seventh and ninth in offense, respectively, but their defenses are dominant enough to make up for those relatively lower ratings.)

So…how big of a deal is it that the Knicks are top five in both categories? And what would it say about their title chances if they remained in this position at the close of the regular season?

Let’s take a look at the last 10 years’ worth of teams who finished top five in both offense and defense to try and find an answer:

• 2025: Thunder (NBA champs) and Celtics (east semis)

• 2024: Celtics (NBA champs) and Thunder (west semis)

• 2023: Celtics (east finals)

• 2022: Suns (west semis) and Grizzlies¹ (west semis)

• 2021: Jazz (west semis)

• 2020: Clippers (west semis) and Celtics (east finals)

• 2019: Raptors (NBA champs) and Bucks (east finals)

• 2018: Raptors (east semis)

• 2017: Warriors (NBA champs)

• 2016: Spurs (west semis)

Add it all up, and of the 15 teams that have pulled this off in the previous decade, we have four NBA champions, three conference finalists, and eight teams that got bounced in the second round. Notably, of the 11 teams that didn’t win it all, only one - the 2018-19 Bucks - got eliminated by the other team who finished in the top five for both categories in that same season (the Raptors, who won it all). Of the other 10, only one of those got beat by the eventual champions (the ‘21-22 Grizzlies, who were bested by the Warriors).

Given that track record, it’s fair to say that having a top five defense and offense isn’t quite the guarantor of success we might have guessed.

So what is? Looking at the four NBA champions on this list, all did have something in common: dominance, if not on both sides of the ball, than certainly on one end of the court.

Last year’s Thunder were first in defense my a country mile. The prior season’s Celtics were first in offense by nearly two points per 100 possessions, not to mention second in defense. The ‘16-17 Warriors finished in those same spots. Only the Raptors - fifth in both offense and defense in the 2018-19 season - didn’t top the charts in any one area, and yet they were arguably the league’s most fearsome, well-connected defense by the time the playoffs rolled around².

As for the six champs in the last 10 years not listed above, four finished in the top three in at least one metric: the 2016 Cavs and the 2018 Warriors were both third in the league in offense, the 2022 Warriors finished second in defense, and the 2020 Lakers ended up third in defense. The 2023 Nuggets were fifth in offense, but that ranking doesn’t fully capture just how hard they were to were to stop in the postseason. Only the 2021 Bucks stand out as a recent NBA champion that wasn’t elite elite on either side of the ball (they finished fifth in offense and ninth in defense), and they were a toenail away from losing in the second round to the Nets, who happened to be the league’s best offense that year.

Bringing it back to the current Knicks, does their third ranked offense - currently 1.7 points per 100 possessions behind the top ranked Nuggets, 0.8 points behind the second place Celtics, and 0.5 points ahead of the fourth ranked Spurs - qualify as the sort of dominant unit that history suggests could propel them to a title?

My guess is that most people reading this would say “no way,” but our viewpoint is probably skewed because we see them so often, getting a front row seat for both the good and the bad. As fans we tend to over-index for poor showings against top defenses while not giving enough credit to the inverse. Maybe we shouldn’t be so harsh.

To illustrate that point, let’s look at how they’ve done against top defenses across the league. Basketball Reference calculates a 121.5 offensive rating for the top-ranked Nuggets. New York has already surpassed that number seven times against top-10 defenses, plus three more times against the 11th ranked Hawks (once) and 12th ranked Magic (twice).

The biggest knock is that five of their 13 worst offensive showings by rating have come against top-six defenses: two vs Detroit, two vs Miami, and one vs OKC. These games - and especially the losses against the Pistons - feed into the narrative that great defenses can shut them down. Then again, Brunson and OG were missing from one of the Heat games while KAT and OG were missing for one of the Pistons games.

And around and around we go.

Here’s where I land: for these Knicks, it’s less about the mean than the range. Can New York avoid the inconsistency that has plagued them for two years? We know they’re capable of the highest of highs, with seven games this season clearing a 140 offensive rating - most in the NBA, and two ahead of Boston in second. The other 28 teams have 29 such games combined, and no one else has more than three. But they also have 13 games with an offensive rating below 104.0. That’s far too many for anyone’s liking.

The hope is that their defense can help steal a game or two against a top offense if and when their own offense goes in the tank, like we saw in Games 1 & 2 against Boston. They came darn close against the Thunder a few weeks ago, which is what made that game so encouraging despite the loss. Maybe they’ve reached the requisite level of consistency on defense to make this happen.

Which brings us right back to their double top-five rating.

I guess what I’m saying is that there are no guarantees in basketball or life, ratings be damned. All things being equal though, it’s great that they’ve shown such competence on both sides of the court.

As long as they play to those capabilities when the stakes are highest, they should be just fine.

💫 Stars of the Game 💫

⭐️ Tyler Kolek: This would have been the perfect day for a “Day in the Life” film crew to follow around Tyler Kolek. After setting the all-time single game scoring mark with 42 points for the Westchester Knicks earlier in the afternoon, Kolek checked in with five minutes remaining against Washington and started bombing threes, ending up with 11 points on a perfect 4-of-4 shooting line. MSG was on its feet and chanting his name in the closing minutes, evoking memories of the Christmas miracle against the Cavs.

In total, Kolek wound up with 53 points, 12 made threes and 12 assists in 42 minutes of basketball on Sunday. Probably worth more than one measly star.

⭐️ ⭐️ Josh Hart: That’s nine consecutive makes from behind the arc for Hart, which is one off Allan Houston’s team record and four off the all time NBA mark. Gotta say, if you’d have asked me before the season which current Knick would be most likely to threaten that record, Hart would not have been my first guess.

Or second. Or third. Or…

I’ll stop there, because unlike some folks, I’d never put any disrespect on Josh Hart’s name³. He works as hard on his jump shot as anyone, and its great to see that hard work paying off. If he can bring this confidence with him into the playoffs, the Knicks go from dangerous to nearly unbeatable.

⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ Karl-Anthony Towns: Speaking of dangerous, since the All-Star game KAT is shooting 58.4 percent from the field and 42.9 percent from deep. None of the other top 50 scorers in the league since the break can boast numbers that high in both categories. He put up 26 & 16 on 13 shots against Washington like it was nothing. He’s been a top 10 NBA player for the past month now, impressing as much on defense as he is on offense (see: last night’s DPOG win). If this continues and his fellow starters can hold up their end of bargain, this team will be playing into June.

Final Thought

My oh my, how far we’ve come. Between 2000-01 and 2019-20, the Knicks had 13 seasons without a winning streak of at least six games. This is now their third streak of at least that many wins this season alone.

Winning really is more fun than fun is fun.

🏀

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

1. The Grizzlies technically ranked 6th in defensive rating in the ‘21-22 season, but their 108.9 rating was identical to the 5th place Cavs, so I’m including them on the list.

2. It’s worth noting that they were third in defense following the Marc Gasol trade, within one point per 100 possessions of the top spot.

3. I kid, I kid.